Call it the Trump traveling show of horrors. He speaks in negatives and gives his ideas for possible solutions to calamities that do not exist. Most notably, his claim of being robbed of the presidency. Protestations of election tampering will continue as long as Trump feels threatened by legal repercussions. These legal issues are becoming legion while Democrats seem incapable of reaching a consensus as to how to speak of it or even what to call it.

To follow the PT Barnum philosophy, “There’s a sucker born every minute” to its logical extension of the Trump philosophy, “Everyone has a price which I will pay and then seduce him into paying it back to me” leads us to this purgatory of being subjected to the whims of a madman.

Trump has so tainted the minds of his devotees that they not only believe him, they adore him. They trust him and will do anything for him. It is a sickness akin to addiction. The first step toward healing is recognizing you have a problem. The second step is accepting a path toward recovery. We are far from any indication that the followers have any cognition of addiction.

It’s a cult of personality. It is not new nor novel nor anything particularly extraordinary. It is a crime of opportunity driven by a perfect storm of racism, supremes, and pandemics. And a large swath of the population who feels compelled to come out of the shadows to spread their ugly brand of segregation.

We are at a crossroads with a catch-22 attached. If the Republicans led by Trump regain power, they will foment civil war. If the Republicans led by Trump fail to regain power, they will foment civil war. The difference will be how easy we make it for them. Our strength as a democratic nation has always been in our ability to agree what a democracy is and the importance of preserving it. That strength is gone. Should we survive the onslaught of the ridiculous right, we will be stronger for it. But maybe not smarter.